Heated mirrors

Our cars have heated door mirrors, locks and window washer jets.
The mirrors and washer jets come on with the ignition when its cold.

What temperature is "cold"?

When do the heated door locks work?

Can the heated door mirrors be programmed to come on with the rear demist?

davey

I thought the mirrors came on , when you put the rear demist on. never new the locks were heated

audimad100

mirrors work with the ignition not sure what temp though, i didnt know about heated door locks either. was that standard fitment or an optional extra

pjbRs

Re: Heated mirrors

Imol4vant wrote:

Our cars have heated door mirrors, locks and window washer jets.
The mirrors and washer jets come on with the ignition when its cold.

What temperature is "cold"?

When do the heated door locks work?

Can the heated door mirrors be programmed to come on with the rear demist?

The heated door locks work at temps below 5C, it activates by pulling the door handle and stays on for a max 50 secs according to outside temps.
The heated washer jets are heated when the ignition is turned on, so not by temp sensor.

Graham

The mirrors have their own thermostat on the back of the glass. Not sure of the temp they activate despite having tested this previously. 5C sounds about right.

S4twiggy

they work in all types of temp, the other day went in the car and it had rained and the steam was coming off the mirrors. just turn on the car and touch the mirror to find out.

Imol4vant

Thanks guys.

Have never noticed them working on my car.

I have two other cars with heated mirrors that come on with the rear demist. They get warm and dry the rain off but not on the RS. Will have a look at the fuse tomorrow.

I only know about door locks from reading the original brochure, seems to come as standard but the hand book doesn't seem to mention it.
Would never have worked out "the pulling the door handle" bit.
Kind of obvious I guess. Not that I ever use the door lock.

Has anyone recently tried to unlock their boot manually?
When I got my car it took about two and a half hours of jiggling, poking, spraying and blowing with the compressor just to get the key in the lock fully. Then nearly another hour to turn and unlock.

pjbRs

mine was the same, must just be through lack of use with the key? i just squirted mine with wd 40 and left it for a few days.
But i prob wont use the key in it either.

Raindrops on my mirrors

One of mine works, other doesnt. I'll get round to changing the glass at some point.

Byzan a4

Pre facelift run whenever the car is on, facelift have a bimetal switch thingy built onto the rear of the mirror glass that operates at around 5 degrees.

The washer jets are on all the time so do burn out, pre and post FL

Imol4vant

Is a 2001 RS4 B5 Pre or Post facelift?

Byzan a4

post mate, RS4 was only ever a "facelift" car

S4 was 1998( althogh a few are 97) to 1999 Pre, and june 1999 to 2001 for post

So the S4s never got the demist activated mirrors like some of the early A4s did.

Imol4vant

So, my mirrors will come on with the rear demist, but only at 5C' or below?

If it has a bimetal switch thingy behind the mirror, cannot be programmed to do anything else.

Those boys at the Audi factory do take it a bit too far sometimes.

The window washers should be the ones that work below 5 not mirrors

Byzan a4

yours will be on if temp 5 or below regardless of demist status

davey

hahahah Im lost now.

pjbRs

Mine are all working as i found out after todays crappy weather, wing mirrors and demist i mean.

Byzan a4

as far as you lot are concerned

pre 1999 ( facelift) are on all the time
post 1999 ( facelift inc RS4) are only on at temps below 5 degrees C

Imol4vant

Thanks for that.

Still would like them to work with demist at any temp.

Oh well.

Imol4vant

Here's a thing.

At the Stirling Meet and had just finished shuffling the RS4s into a line. Was moaning about my mirrors to Hector and touched his(mirrors that is), they were warm. Still moaning about mine always being cold we walked round his car to mine. See, mine are cold.
No. They were warm.
It was raining a lot that day, but not below 10'C.
They worked for a bit on the way home. It was raining on and off.
They worked the other day when I was down in the borders. It was raining.
Think I've worked it out. They don't seem to work with intermittent wiping. They do seem to work with constant wiping.
Is it now possible that they come on constant below 5'C and also when the wipers are above intermittent?

Any more theories?

Rick

Mine is face-lift, i turned the rear screen on this morning and the mirrors started to steam - they were quite hot to touch. It maybe the mirrors are independent of the heated washers/locks.

Rick

Aragorn

The wiring diagram simply shows a trace from Fuse 9 directly to the mirror then to earth.

Fuse 9 gets its feed directly from the 75X contact relay, meaning its on with the ignition.

Theres nothing connecting the mirrors to any other circuit in the car, except on very early prefacelift cars circa 95-96, where they ONLY work with the heated screen.

nur

5C cant be right. I started my car early yesterday morning, wasnt cold either, all my windows were steamed Left it running as usual, didnt use my wipers either opened my window to have a fag a saw steam coming off my mirrors!! Thats when i remembered i had heated mirrors.

I wreckon it was the rear demist switch. BTW how do you activate HL washers?

quattrokid

Imol4vant wrote:

Here's a thing.

At the Stirling Meet and had just finished shuffling the RS4s into a line. Was moaning about my mirrors to Hector and touched his(mirrors that is), they were warm. Still moaning about mine always being cold we walked round his car to mine. See, mine are cold.
No. They were warm.
It was raining a lot that day, but not below 10'C.
They worked for a bit on the way home. It was raining on and off.
They worked the other day when I was down in the borders. It was raining.
Think I've worked it out. They don't seem to work with intermittent wiping. They do seem to work with constant wiping.
Is it now possible that they come on constant below 5'C and also when the wipers are above intermittent?

Any more theories?

you need to be flat out in 6th...ALL windows open, radio set to Ingolstadt FM AND you need to be in knicks and flip flops THEN BOTH yer wing mirrors will demist

Ask Marina what cold is.... She'll tell you

audimad100

mine seem to be working pretty much all the time, i can hear the relay cutting in and out occasionally and the mirrors feel warm. im running a 2000 (x) facelift model

Graham

nur wrote:

5C cant be right. I started my car early yesterday morning, wasnt cold either, all my windows were steamed Left it running as usual, didnt use my wipers either opened my window to have a fag a saw steam coming off my mirrors!! Thats when i remembered i had heated mirrors.

I wreckon it was the rear demist switch. BTW how do you activate HL washers?

Nothing to do with demist switch. An early S4 has heated mirrors all the while the ignition is on. Until they burn out.

ess4avant

On my wife's New Beetle you turn the left/right mirror knob to the middle, this switches on the heated mirrors,
i'm assuming most VAG cars of the same era would be the same

audimad100

interesting point, i always keep my mirror adjust switch in the central position. i wonder if the heated mirror function is turned off if it was switched to adjust one of the mirrors. Bugger i will have to have a look afterwork

Aragorn

As i said above, there is NO other connections anywhere in the system. No switches or knobs, no ECU's or relays or anything fancy.

Just 12v thru a fuse and direct to the mirror glass.

If the IS a bimetallic strip in the glass, its certainly not shown in the wiring diagram, and it might even be used to turn the power OFF should they get too hot, rather than turning them on when its cold...

I suspect the apparent randomness will depend what your doing. If your driving along a motorway with lots of airflow, the mirrors wont get very hot. Sit with the motor running in a car park, and they'll get nice and toasty as theres no airflow cooling them down.

Imol4vant

I see what's wrong now. We were in our knicks, but had wellies on and a different station.

95% of the time mirrors are stone cold. Only recently when on full wipers they've been warm.

Aragorn
I understand what you're saying about the wiring diagram. Ignition on, power to mirror. Is this for the auto dimming or the heaters?
Where does one get a wiring diagram for an RS4 B5?

Was driving about the other day and they were warm with wipers abut not rear demist, two days ago driving about, no wipers, they were stone cold.

Will keep a closer eye on it. Also it's a case of both are cold and when warm they both are, so both behave exactly the same.

If Davey was lost before, I definitely am now.
Thanks again, any more suggestions would be welcome. Till then I guess it's flip flops for us.

Rick

Went out on my lunch. Wipers on, screen off, mirrors were hot. 15C

Now to test with them off.

nur

Im pretty sure its nouwt to do with wipers and any switches. This morning i started it up, left everything off, heating, wipers etc the temp outside read 13C and surely enough the mirrors warmed up. All i know, im glad they work lol

Aragorn

Heaters have their own power supply, unrelated to the autodim and adjustment motors.

I suspect its temperature related, just that it cuts in much higher than 5c.

Imol4vant

Aragorn wrote:

If the IS a bimetallic strip in the glass, its certainly not shown in the wiring diagram, and it might even be used to turn the power OFF should they get too hot, rather than turning them on when its cold...

This is making more sense.
Think bimetallic strip is more like a thermostat. Started the car a couple of mornings, it was cold and mirrors were wet. Heated the mirrors right away but went off quite quickly.
Morning inbetween these two days was dry and warm, mirror heaters didn't come on.
Being in Scotland it doesn't rain very much, so haven't managed to test out the wipers/heated mirrors theory fully. May have been temperature related though.

Imol4vant

Seem to be working every time car is started from cold now, and then go off. Must be thermostats as they are off when hot enough rather than switch on constantly when the outside temp is below a certain level.
Had the car about six months and they have never worked. I guess we're into autumn and the ambient temp is lower.
At least, I now know they work and how they work.

Thanks guys.

quattrokid

hi bud

can you and Marina come over to East Fortune Air Museum on the 31st October?